Why the Iran nuclear talks were over before they began
By Richard Goldberg
December 2, 2021
Indirect talks between the United States and Iran resumed this week in Vienna with world powers eager to find out if the Islamic Republic would agree to curtail its nuclear program. The truth: the negotiations were over before talks began and, without a change in Washington’s strategy, Tehran will soon become a nuclear weapons threshold state.
The reversal of fortunes for the Islamic Republic is breathtaking. The regime entered 2021 with just $4 billion in accessible foreign exchange reserves, according to the International Monetary Fund – down from more than $120 billion in 2017. The next year, the Trump administration ceased America’s participation in the JCPOA and launched a “maximum pressure” campaign that stretched Tehran’s finances to the breaking point. The regime cut back on subsidies, provoking mass demonstrations calling for an end to the dictatorship.
In 2020, General Qassem Soleimani, a top general in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) died in a U.S. military strike. Unknown assailants gunned down Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, head of Iran’s covert nuclear-weapons program, throwing the regime further off-kilter. And Iran faced increasing pressure from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to account for previously unknown and still undeclared nuclear sites throughout the country – and to explain why the agency discovered nuclear material at several of them.
The regime found itself backed into a corner. Until January 20, 2021.
https://www.trackpersia.com/why-the-iran-nuclear-talks-were-over-before-they-began/
